Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 13th 2025 | 2:00 pm

What a spectacular trip! We had rough waters in the south today so we tentatively went northbound hoping the whales up there would not evade us. We made our trip as efficient as possible with short looks at Spieden island, the Turn point Lighthouse (the northwest point of the lower 48 states and jumping pink salmon.

Our luck saved us as the group of whales we were trying to make it to turned south towards us and we got to meet them along...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 11th 2025 | 2:00 pm

We ventured on a long journey today. A successful venture to find killer whales that took us all the way beyond Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. We got to watch some of the T046B1s, a group of Transient Killer Whales (mammal eating ecotype) as they traveled along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Some relatives of theirs in the T046B lineage were also seen in the area further west of the 4 we watched.

 This family had a member named Tl’uk...

Lauren | M/V Kestrel | Thursday, August 7th, 2025 | 2:00 PM

The T018’s are back, and they brought the T109A’s with them! This group of nine orcas were found traveling up the west side of San Juan Island. Since these whales were right in the neighborhood, the M/V Kestrel decided to hit some wildlife stops first. As we departed Friday Harbor we took a left and headed north in San Juan Channel. We quickly made our first stop as Captain Gabe spotted a bald eagle in the treeline off the eastside of...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 10th 2025 | 2:00 pm

Today was a great trip out in the Salish Sea! We got to see a lot of British Columbia and the islands east of Vancouver Island.

We started our trip scanning the beautiful waters of Boundary Pass after a trip along Spieden to find Bald Eagles. The waters here were beautiful and showed a strong contrast line between repeating waves and a calming glossy upwelling we were sitting on while getting great views of Mt. baker backdropping Turn...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 10th 2025 | 10:00 am

The morning search started with great success! Our boat followed along the shoreline of Friday Harbor searching for whales and we ended up encountering the T109As! This was quite the surprise having barely left San Juan Channel. We followed along as they explored the coast and passed Roche Harbor. The 1-year-old in the group (Weiss) was very excited and was breaching out of the water quite often! They were quite bubbly and a joy to watch...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 9th 2025 | 2:00 pm

Great viewing out on the water today! Our groups had a great time in between stops competing to find harbor porpoise swimming along us which was fun. We also go to see a lot of seals hauled out on Sentinel rocks which was great foreshadowing to the seal hunting by killer whales out by Sidney spit.

This groups of three orcas we got to watch were the T019s—a mother (Nootka) and two very large adult sons (Galiano and Spouter). After getting to...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 9th 2025 | 10:00 am

We began our search southward, descending into deep and mysterious fog. What were we to discover on our adventure today… 

The most beautiful sea lion viewing I have been to may be this trip. Shrouded in fog and hearing ominous loud growls and barks from these large creatures was incredibly entertaining and gave me goosebumps. We got to see them fighting along the rock tops as their background was abrupt dense fog. It was intense and...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | Friday August 8th 2025 | 10:00 am

This morning was already very exciting as we left the dock knowing there were some iconic whales not too far away up San Juan Channel. We’ve seen the T18s over the last couple days, including yesterday when they were traveling with another family. Today it was just the three of them, and once we neared President’s Channel we easily began to see the tall dorsal fins of the two boys traveling a bit behind their mom. While I’m always...

Olivia Ellman | M/V Kestrel | Tuesday August 5th 2025 | 2:00 pm

When we left on our afternoon tour, we weren’t quite sure that we would be able to reach the whale reports. While every hour is different on the water and there’s always a chance of finding whales on our own, we were still hoping to catch up with one of the reports that other boats were updating us on. We left the harbor and headed south towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and pointed towards a report of Bigg’s Killer Whales that...

Logan Stecker | M/V Kestrel | August 4th 2025 | 2:00 pm

 What an amazing adventure today! Some great orca behavior was watched and some surprise wildlife popped up out of nowhere.

We started our day going straight over to Cypress Island to look for reported whales. We found a group of 3, including 2 large males, identified to be the T019s. Having not seen this group in the area for multiple months, this was quite exciting! We followed them around the island as they stayed close to shore...